Twenty-One
Sirius knows the drill. Three apparitions before they actually arrive at their destination. Three apparitions too long, too close to a Snape that's watching for the slightest of slips.
Enough, Snape had said, and Sirius halted. His single goal had been to punch Dumbledore-right at his nose, to see if he bled like the rest of them. A single word had stopped him, like a dog on a leash. A rational part of him worked for a moment, forcing a thought of what he was about to do, of the consequences it might have.
He wanted to punch Snape next.
Remus tried to talk-tried to ask what was happening, if Sirius was all right-but the conversations moved too fast, too urgent for answers. He tried and perhaps if there was time, Sirius would tell him all about it. Remus would listen. But time is always running into the next moment, the next thing, and Sirius just follows and fights, and touches Snape's arm, apparating to one location, then another, then back again.
They open the door to the house by the sea, and Sirius hears the sounds Reg is making before he even gets to see him. He strides inside, missing him at first. Reg is sitting on the floor in front of the kitchen counter.
He walks to him, bends, watching as his brother is holding the inside of his arm, his eyes closed, trying to keep his mouth shut, in a desperate attempt to hide the pained sounds that escape him anyway.
"What happened?" Sirius asks and he tries to take his hand in his, to look if he's hurt, to search where the wound is.
Reg snatches his hand back. An angry breath leaves him.
"Is it the Mark?" Snape asks, standing above them.
His brother raises his eyes to him. He doesn't answer. And that is an answer on its own.
"Let me see." Sirius says. A grip on Reg's arm.
"No." Reg looks at him, then at the floor. "It's fine. It isn't something that hasn't happened before."
"I have seen it before." Sirius says. He doesn't have a lot of patience at the moment.
"Not on..." Reg stops himself, staring hard at Sirius. Then he raises the sleeve of his robes.
He keeps staring as Sirius looks at it, trying to keep his expression neutral. He has seen the Mark before, but this is his brother's arm, a hand Sirius knew, lean, pale, a hand that grabbed his night robes when the rain hit the house too hard.
"Satisfied?" Reg says, and he tries to pull away.
"Is he summoning you?" Snape asks.
Reg looks at Snape, at the floor again.
"Yes." He answers quietly.
"For how long?" Snape asks, and it's almost accusing.
"For a couple of days." Reg says and he shrugs.
Snape crosses his arms. He's disappointed. Reg knows, that's why he doesn't look at him.
"Are you going to be a liability?" The single question snaps his brother back to life.
"No, I'm.."
"This is a safe house, both for you and the Horcruxes." Snape is looking down at him. "Anything that happens here I need to know. What if the pain becomes too much, what if you lead him straight to the items that we are trying to hide?"
"He's in pain right now." Sirius says. Snape spares him a glance.
"I'm resisting him." Reg tells him.
"I'll decide that." Snape replies.
"I'm not compromising the..." Reg moves away from Sirius, perhaps in an attempt to show that he's his own person.
"You withholding information is a compromise. Perhaps reckless bravery is something you share with your brother."
Both of them protest, but Snape ignores them, turning away. He takes out his bag, frowns as he opens it, there and away.
He stretches out his arm, offering a bottle, a small container to Reg.
"It will not make the pain disappear, but it might reduce its intensity."
"Do you want me to..." Sirius asks, as Reg gets up.
"No." He says harshly, and Sirius nods. "It's easier if I do it myself." He adds calmly, as if to explain himself.
They don't know how to navigate each other. Open wounds, covered by clothes and marks, by a divide of too many years.
"Yeah. Sure." Sirius tells him, in an attempt to show that he's not angry. Reg nods back.
It's awkward and suffocating, but not hateful-not pure anger. It's something.
Sirius gets up too.
Snape is looking at the open diary at the table. Still blank, but Sirius watches the bottles of ink around it. More than one.
"You've been busy." Snape says, and Reg misses the warning.
"I have to admit, that the approach of vulnerability in the shape of a teenager's love proved worthy. I kept writing and it's easy to forget that this thing is a Horcrux. Perhaps the Dark Lord was less cruel, the time he created this."
Sirius feels his instincts on fire. An alarm that he can't point.
As Reg keeps talking, Snape closes the diary. There is something in his voice that feels wrong, like there is a blur between what the diary is and the things Reg is describing.
"How long since you slept?" Snape asks.
"I didn't have time to sleep, while you were there fighting. I am close to discovering exactly what he wants."
Snape looks at him.
"You will not write to it any more." He says.
"What?" Reg takes a step. "I'm the one that told you about it, you can't take it away from me." He's yelling, taking a step towards Snape.
Snape lifts his chin, unimpressed.
"I have talked to him, he trusts me." Another step, and Sirius moves, ready to grab him.
"You can't just take him." Reg stops. Realization dawns on him like a slap to the face.
He freezes. A look at the object and then away.
"You will tell us exactly what you talked about." Snape says and Reg swallows. "And then you will go to sleep."
Reg sits back on the table, and Sirius takes the diary away. He thinks, he hears a sigh of relief.
____
They arrive at Hogwarts late into the evening. Dinner has been served and ended-if the students running to their dorms before curfew are any indication.
"Mister Snape. Mister Black." McGonagall is there to greet them. "I am informed that you will be using the school's library for the next few days." She says, and Severus welcomes her straight-to-the-point manner of speaking.
"That is correct." Severus tells her.
"You will be given two rooms..." She starts.
"One will be sufficient." Severus says, because even here, even inside the school Albus believes to be unbreachable, he needs to keep Black close. This whole mission started because he needs to keep Black close.
"As you please." She says. "You, of course, can use the entirely of the library, but I have to ask you to not disturb the students in their studies."
"We will not." Severus says.
"Thank you." She answers. And then her posture shifts, as if she said everything that needed to be said with her professional tone.
"How are you?" She asks, looking between him and Black.
"Living the dream." Black answers and Severus presses his lips.
"Surviving." He tells her.
She nods once. She glances toward the last of the students climbing the stairs.
"It wasn't long before you were amongst them." She says. Her tone never changes too much, there is no sentimentality and yet, she is truthful. "Surviving." She adds and she looks back at them. "The next time we meet, I expect a better answer. You were both too bright to settle for just surviving."
An accusation of the war, of what it does. Of what it will do to the next generation of her students.
"No fights." She says as a reminder of days long gone. "I expect excellent behaviour from both of you." A squeeze of both their shoulders, before she escorts them to the room they'll be occupying.
"Where is Albus?" Severus asks, just before she leaves.
"He is attending some business outside school at the moment." She answers.
She doesn't know. There is no exact tell of it, she has an authority that doesn't leave a room from questioning.
Severus can tell, only because he knows how Albus operates.
"I see." He says.
A nod. A goodnight. A door closed.
Severus scans the room. Large enough to contain a desk and a library. A bed, a couch, a bathroom of its own.
A professor's room.
Black lights a cigarette, as he opens the drawers of the desk.
"We will go to the library to search, so finish your cigarette quickly." Severus tells him.
"Do you think Reg will be fine?" He asks, not looking back.
"As long as the items are with us." Severus replies.
"What if he...?" He leaves his question unfinished.
"The salve will help him ease the pain. He doesn't want to return." Severus replies flatly.
Black turns to him.
"He isn't inclined toward darkness, Black. There are no inherently dark sides, no people born evil. There are choices and resilience. And you brother showed both."
Black has been restless since the diary incident. He shouldn't be. It was the close proximity, the anxiety he must have felt about Voldemort's summoning, about the Ministry's fall. Regulus Black is not born evil. It's the circumstances around him that make him lean into it.
"If you say so." Black answers. A hint of mockery, mixed with a hopeless inevitability. They can't do anything else.
"I say so." Severus tells him. Black gives him a hard stare. His cigarette is half way burned.
"Right." He says, as if he can't help to speak the last word.
Severus scoffs, Black exhales smoke, rolling his eyes.
They stare at each other, until Severus taps a finger on his arm, until Black finishes his cigarette.
"Do you think it will work?" He asks.
"It depends." Severus tells him.
"On?" Black raises an eyebrow.
"On how fast I can learn a language."
_____
The books have proven useless. The problem is, as always, that people tend to see evil and darkness in the most ridiculous things.
The diary has provided Regulus Black with careful instructions on what to do and how to do it, deliberately leaving out the most crucial part. Severus knows where they should go, a bathroom of all things, he knows how to enter, but he is blind as to what comes next.
Regulus played the part of a young pureblood, with ease, since he is exactly that, following his older brother trail of a helpless teenager.
He invested in the diary and its responses in a way he shouldn't have, and perhaps that is what gave them the actual answers.
Black is reading on the couch by the window. Books are scattered around him, open to different pages, as he smokes over the ancient tomes.
They don't speak much, which Severus appreciates, since when they do, they nearly fight, an argument on the tip of their tongues, a disagreement that travels between subjects and discoveries, and solutions left to be found.
He is worried about his brother. About the Mark and his lean to Dark objects. It's futile because, as he has already told him, people aren't born evil.
Yet, Severus isn't willing to gamble everything on the resilience of a man trapped inside a house with a master calling for him. He took the Horcruxes with him, even though it's a risk. Everything is a risk at this point.
He sighs. Black raises his eyes from the book he's reading.
"Did knowledge finally beat you?" He asks, as if he wants Severus to respond, as if he wants it to escalate.
"The stupidity of people did." Severus says and the look he receives it's hard.
Severus doesn't care if he takes it as a personal insult. He is worried of what might happen if they go where the diary wants them to. He is worried because the school is full, and Albus is absent still.
He is worried if he'll be able to get there in the first place.
"So?" Black asks pointing at the book on his hands.
"We'll have to improvise." Severus says and it pains him just the word. Black finds it amusing. "Anything on your end?"
"A pile of crap." He says. "Endless entries about the brilliance of the Founders, as if they weren't people like the rest. Less about their precious artifacts."
Severus rubs his eyes, his forehead next. Black groans.
"Let's just go." He says. "Get this over with."
Severus stares at him hard.
"You can get mad all you like, it's still the same in the end. We either go and try, or we don't go at all. We won't learn anything more out of this. We've been searching for days."
Painful ones, Severus admits. Full of silences, and barely there fights, of moving out of each other space, in the limited one they have.
"I'm done with it." Black closes the book he's holding. He gets up, bouncing on his feet, he rubs his thighs, glancing outside.
Severus knows he will say something stupid, before he does.
"I want to fly."
"We will not go out, while the students are there." Severus says. "And before you ask, firstly because it will cause an unnecessary disturbance, and secondly because as you said yourself, potential Death Eaters might be among the students."
"I can't read another fucking line about Gordic Gryffindor's bravery and how his sword is a fucking manifestations of his chivalry, or about Rowena Ravenclaw spoke of brilliant nonsense." Black lights another cigarette.
He is behaving like a demanding child. Yet in the end, he's right. There is nothing more for them to find in books.
"I need some time to prepare. A day. And then we will go." He tells him.
"Great." Black answers, looking out the window.
Severus breaths out the urge to grab him, shake him into compliance.
"I will teach you the spell." He says, and Black turns his attention to him.
"Here?" He asks, disbelieving, surprised. The suggestion contains his anger enough.
"I invented it beside a dumpster in Cokeworth." Severus tells him. "I think here is more than fine to teach it."
"You sure know how to win an argument." Black says. It's accusing, angry enough to be focused.
"I know how to win period." Severus replies.
Black's smile holds the same shades-accusing, angry, focused.
He walks, his wand is out on the second step, he is in front of Severus by the fourth.
"Come on." He says, as if he's the one in control of this, as if this was his proposal.
"Put out the cigarette." Severus tells him. "And fix your posture."
Black vanishes it, as he takes a drag.
"Straighten your back." Severus instructs. Black is standing in front of him, staring. "Your grip on the wand is too loose."
"That is how I wield it." Black says.
Severus puts his hands behind his back. "I know. Change it."
Black is getting more irritated. He thinks Severus mocks him. A way to make him feel small perhaps. To taunt him.
"I'm about to show you how to use a spell I created." Severus says. "Adjust it."
He tries, after a breath or two. It's close. It's imperfect. Severus takes a hold of his hand, moves the fingers on the wand, close together in tight grip, until his knuckles start to be whiter. Black watches the motion.
"Are you angry?" Severus asks, and Black looks back at him. He doesn't get an answer, he doesn't need to. "Good. It's a spell used for damage, to hurt. I invented it with that purpose and that purpose only."
"For who?" Black asks. His breath hits Severus face.
"Use your imagination." Severus tells him, but he doesn't give him time to do that.
He raises his arm, taking a step to the side. He had pictured lines, red, open, bleeding. He had pictured something familiar.
"It needs focus. A point to the chest." He says and he releases Black's arm. "It needs proper pronunciation. And intent."
Black glances at him.
"Is there a counter?" Black asks.
"Yes." Severus tells him, and Black watches the word leaving his mouth. "Look at the wall across."
Black does as instructed.
"Now speak the incantation."
"Sectumsempra." Black says, a little breathless. He knows it's wrong, without Severus telling him. So he says it again. Again. And the word hardens, slowly, a different tone of what Severus uses now, when he casts it. A reminder of how it sounded when the spell was first created. Anger and frustration-a means of survival, a satisfaction in suffering.
"How will I know if it works?" Black asks, his eyes still on the wall.
"You'll find out the first time you use it. Now keep practicing." Severus steps toward the desk. He has his own practice to do.
"Is that how you found out?" Black asks. "It's unlike you to leave something unconfirmed."
"So unlike me that it sounds almost impossible." Severus sits on the chair, opening the diary. "Keep practicing," he says when he feels Black's stare on him.
"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" He asks.
Severus takes a breath and dips the quill into the ink.
"I have plenty of skin to spare," he says. "And a high tolerance for pain."
Silence. He is tempted to turn and look. He doesn't. Instead, he writes the first word on the blank page.
_____
The instructions are simple enough for a fifteen year old boy to follow. They go late into the night, passing by the dark corridors of Hogwarts while the castle is sleeping. There is an eerie atmosphere, so much quietness in something so vast.
Severus opens the bathroom door, illuminated and empty. The instructions are simple. He knows what he has to do. It's the pieces missing that make him anxious. How does one replicate a language never heard. What awaits them if they succeed.
He takes a breath, and with it a step. Black closes the door behind them.
Another step, his, then Black's, echoing in the empty space.
He has the diary in his hand. It wants them to find the place. It wants them to open it. Severus knows it's wrong. And he knows it's their only lead at this point.
"You aren't supposed to be here." Someone speaks, a woman, Severus has his wand raised. Black has taken a step in front of him.
"This is a girl's bathroom."
There is a ghost standing in front of them. A girl, a student perhaps, since she is wearing a school uniform.
"Well?" She asks.
Severus finds the majority of the ghosts annoying. There is a desperation on clinging to life like that, as an echo of what one was once.
"We have access to be here. Now be quiet." Severus turns his back on the ghost, only for her to appear in front of him.
"You're rude. Everyone is rude to poor Myrtle."
Severus sighs.
"I can't imagine why." He tells her.
"Oh, they usually say I'm whining too much, or that I'm ugly and annoying. They make fun of my glasses too." Myrtle looks at him. A spin around him. "What's your name? What are you doing here, sneaking in the girl's bathroom into the night?"
She is annoying, Severus concludes.
He ignores her, and proceeds to the sink, the diary instructed. There is an engraved snake on the tap. Nothing much, nothing that couldn't be passed as a design. Hidden in plain sight.
"And who are you?" He hears the ghost speaking to Black.
Severus tries to tune her out, to erase her voice, Black's voice, his steps on the bathroom floor.
He tries to imagine how a word he's never heard would sound. He speaks and it sounds ridiculous.
Nothing happens. He tries again, even though he knows it's impossible. No matter how much he practices, there is no point of reference. Written nonsense on paper.
"What are you doing?" The ghost asks.
Severus grabs the sink, the marble is cold under his hands.
"There are ways for ghosts to be tortured." He tells her. "Erased even. Do you want to be my experiment?"
Myrtle starts crying. Loud, mismatched noises, as if she tries to be more annoying.
"You're rude...Rude and mean..." She yells.
"You sure know how to talk to them." Black tells him. Severus wants to point out, that while he can't physically hurt the ghost, Black is another story.
"Stop crying." He tells her, only to make it worse.
His next attempts are followed by Myrtles whining, Black's attempts to calm her, his mockery in between.
The first night is a failure.
The second and third are, as well.
Severus barely sleeps the next day. He spends five hours reading books that he knows are useless for the task at hand. The food grows cold on the desk, until it's dismissed.
He gets up, takes a cigarette out of Black's pack left on the couch, taking a drag as he paces the room.
It's an impossible problem to solve. He has a solution, without the means to use it. Perhaps, he should use the diary, the same way Regulus had. Perhaps if he gives enough, he will be able to take something back. A desperate attempt with uncertain results.
He presses a thumb on his forehead. Think. Think. Think.
His mind is failing him.
He dreads the night, the empty corridors, the voice of Myrtle as she whines, and taunts and poorly flirts with Black.
He hates the silence of the room during the day. Every page that's turned, every breath, every wasted minute, because there is no solution. It's an impossible problem.
A gamble that needed luck, and Severus never had any.
"You look like shit." Black tells him, before they exit the room on the fourth night. "Maybe try to sleep a little."
"I sleep enough." Severus says, and Black grabs his arm. A proximity after days of avoidance. Severus thinks that he might hurt him. A thought emerged from months before.
"You're on edge." Black tells him.
"Are you utterly stupid?" Severus tries to release his arm, Black grips him tighter. "We have no time to waste."
"Even if we succeed, you are in no position to do anything. Eat something." His stare is hard, reprimanding.
"We have no other lead," Severus says, "and time is running out. It's not a matter of if, this has to work." Severus replies, just as hard.
"You're exhausting yourself." Black tells him.
"I've had worse." Severus says, as he pushes him enough to take a step back.
"Snape." Black raises his voice, but Severus is already walking to the stairs. He has to try again.
Another failure. He's grabbing the sink with both hands. He thinks of exploding it.
"Are you going to cry?" Myrtle asks, and Severus thinks, he will make her explode. "I like boys that cry." She adds.
She huffs when Severus ignores her.
"Do you cry, Sirius?" She says. A floating inconvenience. A nagging. "I wish a boy would cry when I died. But nobody did."
"I know." Black says. "You told me."
Severus stares at him at the mirror. Black stares back. An accusation.
"Nobody did when I died. They found me after hours and hours. I was waiting here, thinking, surely someone will search. Surely someone thinks of me enough." Myrtle complains again. About her death. A repeat of the story. A repeat of loneliness.
Maybe in another life Severus would empathize with her.
"Yeah. And then Olive Hornby came." Black says flatly. He is still staring at Severus. "Go to sleep." He tells him.
"Yeah, Olive Hornby. I think the look on her face made my death worth it a little." She giggles.
Severus rolls his eyes. At Black. At the pettiness of Myrtle.
"She was at fault anyway. I wouldn't have come to the bathroom, if she hadn't said those awful things about me." She floats around Black.
"Yes. She was awful." Black replies absent-mindedly. "It won't work. Go to sleep."
Severus grips the sink tighter, tight enough for his knuckles to go white.
"Yes, awful." Myrtle echoes. Then, as if she realises she doesn't have Black's full attention, she turns to Severus. "You look awful." She tells him, and Severus retreats his hands from the sink, turning around. Myrtle hides behind Black. "And scary." She says. "And I don't understand half of the things you say every night. Not that I did the first time. Is it a way boys speak? A funny language only you know?
Anyway, you should go to sleep. Me and Sirius will..."
"What did you say?" Severus takes a step.
"You should go to sleep." Myrtle says reluctantly. It's the first time he's addressed her. He feels her suspicion.
"About the way I speak. You have heard it before."
It takes a moment for her to catch on. A giggle that Severus wants to rip from her face.
"Oh, now you want to hear poor Myrtle's story." She says.
Black is in front of him in the next breath. A hold of his hand, as Severus barely managed to grab his wand.
"Sure," Black says, and he stares Severus in the eyes. "He'd love to."
"Well, he has to say it himself. He has been too mean to me these past few days." She plays with her hair.
Severus tries to remove his hand, but Black holds it there, on his stomach between them.
Black's smile is full of confidence—reminding Severus of the boy he hated.
"I'll love to hear it." He says, as if this is the most important thing to him. As if Myrtle's story is everything that he wants. "So tell me." Words spoken with borderline flirtation.
"Well, since you asked." Myrtle says, a shake of her head as if she is doing them a favour, as if she has stopped talking about herself even a minute.
Neither of them paid her any attention. It's tragic, how she's stuck in that version of herself.
It's tragic, that there is no escape. Severus almost pities her. Almost.
"Tell me about the funny way boys speak." Black says, a smile, a smirk, an evidence of his charm.
"I don't know much." She says. "But there was a boy, just before I died, that spoke in a different language, and he was right here in the girl's bathroom. He shouldn't be here." She says.
"How did it sound?" Sirius asks.
"I can't repeat it, can I?" She giggles. "It was just funny."
Severus is ready to make her try.
"Thank you Myrtle." Black says, as he drags him away.
"Don't you want to hear the rest?" She asks.
"Tomorrow. I'm ready to sleep. You want my full attention, right?" Black asks.
"Yeah," a disappointment. "Tomorrow."
A wink and Myrtle giggles.
Black drags him into the room, closing the door.
"Are you mad? We were almost there." Severus says.
"You're barely standing." Black tells him. "You can't even think rationally." Then he laughs. "How the roles have reversed?"
"Are you enjoying this?" Severus asks.
Black lets out a breath—a laugh, short, cutting.
"Go to sleep." He says and he walks towards the couch.
_____
When Black wakes up, Severus is drinking his second cup of coffee of the day. He managed five hours of sleep—an achievement, a waste of time, a much-needed rest.
Black rubs his eyes—twice—and he's awake, staring at Severus from the couch where he rests.
"How good are you at Legilimency?" Severus asks and Black groans, closing his eyes for a moment. He opens them again, he looks at the ceiling, then at Severus.
"Have you slept at all?" He asks.
"Yes." Severus taps his finger on the desk.
"Eaten anything?" Black says, as if Severus were a child who needed to be reminded of the most basic things. As if he doesn't know his limits.
"Yes." He replies. He sips his coffee in an attempt to stay calm. They need calm and control.
"At least your hands aren't trembling." Black says, as he gets up.
"They are hunting us." Severus tells him. A lift of the morning paper McGonagall had provided him. "Us, specifically."
Their faces are covering the front page, younger, their school robes on them. Enemies of the Ministry—the bold headline beneath.
"We need to act fast." Severus says, as Black touches the left end of the paper.
Black looks down at him, as Severus sits on the chair.
"So, yes, I've eaten, I've slept, yes to all the meaningless things you want to ask." Black’s stare is hard. He snatches the paper out of Severus’s hands, walking towards the bathroom. The sharp slam of the bathroom door echoes through the room.
_____
"We need access to Myrtle's memories." Severus tells Black as soon as he emerges from the bathroom. "So, how good are you at Legilimency?"
"Do ghosts have memories?" Black asks back. "I mean solid ones that you can access?"
He is wiping his hair with a towel, casually and slowly, as if time isn't breathing down on them. As if this whole thing hasn't proven a disappointment from start to finish. Books proved useless, while Black's charm gave them the answer.
"I imagine it will differ from searching the mind of a living person, but they will be there nevertheless. With enough precision and willingness on her part, it can be achieved." Severus tells him.
Black looks at him, a raised eyebrow. An answer without words.
"I thought as much." Severus says.
"Are you? Any good?" He asks, and it's mocking.
"Good enough." Severus tells him.
"I thought as much." He echoes.
Black offers him a cigarette, lights it, then takes one for himself. He sits down on the edge of the bed.
"The problem is that she won't let me do it." Severus says.
"Serves you right. You've been an asshole."
"Thank you for your opinion on the matter. It really provides a solution to the problem at hand." Severus says, crossing his legs. He turns a spoon at his mug, full circles, slowly, like a potion he brewed too many times.
"It's kind of tragic." Black says. "She was alone in life. And she’s alone in death too."
Severus rolls his eyes. "Stay and keep her company then." A shake of his head. "She is an excellent company."
"Keep that attitude." Black releases the smoke from his mouth. "She'll definitely let you poke in her head."
Black raises his leg. His chin rests on his knee.
He's staring again, as he's been doing for the last few days. A mix of concern, pity and anger.
Severus ignores him. As he's been doing for the last few days.
"Since you are so polite and charming, convince her to let me do it. That I'm not a threat." Severus tells him.
"So you want me to lie." Black replies.
Severus breaths through his nose.
"Okay." Black says. "And what if she doesn't agree?"
"She will comply. One way or the other." Severus says and Black flinches just barely. "Are you feeling generous, sentimental over a ghost? There are people—very much alive—who depend on what we're doing."
"I know." Black says irritated. He's looking at the floor.
"So what exactly is the problem?" Severus inhales the smoke. He should stop indulging in this habit.
"She was bullied and alone. She died because of that. Doesn't that sound a little too familiar?" Black says without looking at him.
Severus clenches his jaw. The ash from his cigarette falls down on his clothes.
"Are you comparing her to me?" He asks and his tone is cold enough for Black to turn his gaze and stare.
Severus moves his wand vanishing the ash.
"I will inform you then, that I was alone by choice. I would rather be alone than act like someone I’m not." He says and Black hears the unsaid accusation, he understands it. "So whatever comparison your barely functioning brain is making is false. I was alone, because I chose to."
Black is ready to say something, as Severus gets up.
"Prepare for tonight." Severus tells him. "If you're feeling pity for her, perform to the best of your ability. Make her cave. I will access that memory either way."
Severus opens his bag. He counts the potions. Barely enough until the end.
"And refrain from anything too bold and idiotic. Going back to your apartment to replenish our stock is no longer an option."
"Snape."
"I have to prepare." Severus looks at him. "Try to comply this time."
_____
Severus leans against the wall across from the sinks, watching Myrtle's delight as Black focuses on her. She's doing most of the talking, she craves to speak, even if she has nothing notable to say. The most significant thing in her short life was her death. So she circles back to it, again and again. It's easy to lure her into it. Into more.
Black's smiles are easy, even if they're fake. She doesn't know that. Severus does. He watches the posture, his left hand resting on the sink as he leans his body into it, the well-timed nods, a little bit of laughter here and there.
Effortlessly charming, with a hint of danger.
Myrtle bites it. She would have, Severus thinks, even if she wasn't so desperate.
"I was wondering," Black tells her, "if we could see into that day." Myrtle is frowning. Instantly suspicious as a reflex. And it is exactly that. A reflex to unknown danger, to possible cruelty. She probably had enough practice.
Well, she isn't as stupid as she seems. That's a problem.
"See into it?" She asks, and then she giggles as if Black told her something funny. "We are not there yet."
Severus rolls his eyes. He maybe sighs, because Black turns to him.
"But if you ask very very nicely, I might let you." She speaks again the moment the attention shifts away.
Black isn't used to ask nicely. He tries. It comes a little bit rough, but Myrtle doesn't mind. She isn't going to agree so easily. Perhaps not at all. She has discovered a means of leverage, a way to vanish her isolation.
"Tell me a secret." She says. She giggles. Because it's a game for her. Because she died young, and annoying, and bitter. Forever there, without being able to be better or worse.
Black looks at her, a subtle movement of his lips, the sweep of his palm on his jeans—betraying discomfort. He’s thought of something he doesn’t want to share.
Severus wants to tell him to think of something else. It's easy. He can say anything. Myrtle won't know.
Black tries, a slight cough, but he seems stuck to a thought, Severus doesn't know.
"Enough." He says.
Black looks at him. Myrtle rolls her eyes.
"Don't you have something to do?" She asks.
"Yes." Severus tells her and he leaves the wall he's standing.
He watches Black tense, but Severus has held on to this farce longer than he could handle.
Myrtle is ready to retort, to say something mean or dismissive, but she is looking at him, so it doesn't matter.
"Legilimens." He says with his wand raised, and he gambles on Myrtle’s retreat, on the effectiveness of the spell on a ghost, on the haze of a mind that isn’t willing.
It's brutal, intrusive. A haze of thoughts barely there, barely formed, of feeling blurred or forgotten.
...so many friends
... beautiful and...
I don't want to...
...maybe he likes me...
...if she died then...
...boys shouldn't be...
...I want to...
...leave...
...how funny...
"He won't hurt you." Severus hears Black's voice. He sees Myrtle's thoughts, hearing Black's voice. "He's an impatient bastard when it comes to results, but he won't hurt you."
Lies. Lies. I hate everyone. Everyone is mean and...
Her thoughts, though, become clearer as Black talks. He speaks of nonsense, but she still hears them, she focuses on them. She keeps her mind open, even if everything is clouded by a white cloud, even if Severus can't find what he is looking for.
"I'm sorry." Black tells her. "For this." And then. "For your death."
Nobody is sorry.
She thinks, but Severus can hear her cries, clearly in her mind. Her hurt from being mocked and rejected, a door closing, again another, feet on tiles, her muttering on wishful thinking, on revenge.
He hears someone talking.
What a funny language. Wait boys shouldn't be...
Severus focuses on it.
What a funny...
Again.
What a funny language...
Again. Again. Until it's etched on his brain, the boy's voice and hers, until he realises that Myrtle is letting him repeat it. Severus isn't sure, it's because of Black softening, or because she knows that when a door opens again she will die.
Let go, Severus thinks or he says it. Let go, he can't hurt you here.
And Myrtle does and all Severus can think is yellow.